


Thorns and Blossoms

by NorroenDyrd



Series: And at Last I See the Light [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Elves, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Nature Magic, Period-Typical Racism, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 05:54:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15924239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: A small snippet of the early relationship progress between the bristly, aloof Maedhros Lavellan and Josephine Montilyet, who has the rare power of making him melt. Maedhros has always had an affinity for nature magic, and where gruff humans belittling his fellow elves get twisting conjured vines and thorns, the gentle Josephine gets blossoms.





	Thorns and Blossoms

It has already been a few days, but there are still sprawling, bristling vines plastered against the outer wall of the Chantry, in that corner where Lavellan had his confrontation with the men of a visiting bann.  
  
The very first, tiniest sprouts began to appear, their slithering rustle faint like the flap of a butterfly’s wings, the moment the elf, who must have been on his way to the war room to see if the first reports on the Inquisition making coin had come in, was grabbed forcefully by the shoulder and pulled to the side by the leader of the little troop, a ruddy unshaven man in chainmail, with a figure all pieced together from squares and rectangles: square torso, rectangular arms, rugged diamond-shaped face with broad cheekbones, a narrow forehead, and pointy chin.  
  
‘Oi knife-ear!’ he boomed. ‘Our lord wants to have a word with your Herald! You know where he’s at?’  
  
'You are looking at him,’ Lavellan responded, inhaling steadily through his long, oddly shaped nose, while his fingers flexed, ever so slightly, and a green light pulsed within his half-clenched grasp (little to so with the Mark, it seemed, for it had sparked in both of his fists), and the little vines on the wall grew a fraction of an inch thicker, spreading in bouts that coincided with the pulses of light.  
  
The human grunted derisively.  
  
'Yeah, like Andraste would pull a crusty old rabbit like you out of the Fade! She may have been stupid enough to let Vints capture her and all, but she ain’t that stupid! You’re pranking us, right? Messing with us? That’s what your kind do, innit? 'Specially the ones with the weird ink shit on your faces…’  
  
He nodded at the white, time-bleached lines of vallaslin branching across the lined brown skin underneath Lavellan’s eyes. The elf inhaled again, and the vines grew thicker still - but it was not after the human nodded to one of his fellows (made out of pudgy circles rather than squares), and the latter stuck out his foot to trip up a passing servant girl, that the thorns began to protrude.  
  
'Ey you, flat little whimp,’ the square one laughed unkindly - hinting at the girl’s bony, narrow-chested built, as she froze on all fours in the mud at his feet, sniffling squeakily at the pain in her grazed palms and knees. 'Tell your shrivelled friend over here that the joke ain’t funny! Whoever put you lot up to it, it won’t work on us! Or on our lord!’  
  
'Your lord may be in need of new… henchmen soon,’ Lavellan hissed under his breath - and just as the human raises his foot to give the servant an 'encouraging’ kick, a few of the vines detached themselves from the wall with a head-splitting crunch, and lashed forward, swaying like serpents, their thorns growing and hardening right before the little band’s widened, glassy eyes. One such thorn was aimed strategically at the square human’s throat, another one at his crotch - and they would have punctures their meaty targets, sooner or later, had a group of Inquisition agents not intervened.  
  
Lavellan, once he had helped the breathless, shaken girl to her feet and answered all of the agents’ confused questions and the band’s gasping, salivating accusations with the same brusque, 'They were harassing your servants and insulting your goddess’, allowed the swaying vines to be chopped down - but those of them that clung on the wall still remain.  
  
He has been stopping in front of them time and again, just as he has stopped now, resting his hands on his hips and chewing absently at the long curved stem of his signature pipe. Whatever magic his anger powered up, it has long since faded (especially since all the bug-eyed, cursing members of warrior band were promptly ushered out of Haven, and a stern letter on their behaviour sent off to their master). The vines no longer appear alive - well, no more alive than any regular, unconjured creeping plant; and yet, they have not crumbled off to dust entirely, as they probably should have, and every time Lavellan lingers in front of them, he can feel the apprehensive stares of the Inquisition’s Templars eat through the back of his head.  
  
They are perfectly in the right, of course; he has seen full well what magic can do if it spins out of control, and he knows he shouldn’t have summoned these thorny things in the first place. Perhaps, he muses to himself as he prepares to light his pipe - with a tinder box, not magic, for the sake of everyone’s peace of mind - he should just ask a shem to grab a torch and burn them all down…  
  
'Milord Lavellan?’ a soft voice calls from behind his back, and as he recognizes it, he feels his breath stop momentarily, his chest clenching with that aching sweetness that fills him in a wine-like buzz whenever Ambassador Montilyet is near.  
  
'Are you busy?’  
  
'No, of course not,’ he splutters, his heart beginning to pound with the fear that he must not be coming off as friendly enough again. It is not something that he is very practiced at, and it usually does not bother him, but… Ambassador Montilyet is not someone whom he wants to 'Uh’ and 'Hm’ at with his eyebrows knitted.  
  
As he turns around, fumbling to put his pipe away, he sees that the Ambassador is holding a tray, lined with a row of small, chubby, dainty pastries with soft tops crowned by berries and chocolate crumbs. Cupcakes, he thinks they are called; he vaguely remembers trying them a few times, including that dazed morning when he was almost force-fed them by a chattering, gasping throng of Orlesian city elves whom he had protected the night before - the dreaded time of the chevaliers’ gruesome initiation ritual. Sweet, melting, frilly trifles; a guilty indulgence that he has not even realized he was missing… until now.  
  
'I know I apologized to you on the Inquisition’s behalf for the disgraceful scene you witnessed, milord,’ the Ambassador says, twirling her foot in a half-curtsey in front of her (a motion that brings a slow, dreamy smile to Lavellan’s lips, while that butterfly-like rustle seems to return behind his back… or maybe it is just his mind playing tricks on him, and the butterflies are actually flapping in his stomach).  
  
'Repeatedly. But it still felt like it was not enough. So… please accept these as a token of appreciation. Lenora, the servant who suffered before your eyes, has also received her share of cupcakes. As well as a pouch of coins. And poultices for her knees and palms. And what little variety of flowers I could obtain at such short notice’.  
  
Much to Lavellan’s own confusion, his smile broadens into a full-blown grin that feels alien on his face, but not unwelcome.  
  
'You… You are too kind, milady… You were not the one who wronged us’.  
  
'But I am the one with the power to make you feel welcome,’ the Ambassador says with conviction… And, not a moment afterwards, she glances up past his shoulder and exclaims,  
  
'Oh, milord! The vines are blossoming! Look! There are tiny purple blooms among the thorns! Like stars!’  
  
Her excited voice is loud enough to carry across to the Spymaster’s tent - and, unbeknownst to Lavellan, who is too busy gaping in hushed awe at the specks of tender colour peppering the tangled mass of wiry dry tendrils on the wall, the dreaded Nightingale also looks up and furrows her forehead, wondering.


End file.
